23 -- A Night of Terror

To Jane Clayton, waiting in the tree where Werper had
placed her, it seemed that the long night would never
end, yet end it did at last, and within an hour of the
coming of dawn her spirits leaped with renewed hope at
sight of a solitary horseman approaching along the
trail.

The flowing burnoose, with its loose hood, hid both the
face and the figure of the rider; but that it was M.
Frecoult the girl well knew, since he had been garbed
as an Arab, and he alone might be expected to seek her
hiding place.

That which she saw relieved the strain of the long
night vigil; but there was much that she did not see.
She did not see the black face beneath the white hood,
nor the file of ebon horsemen beyond the trail's bend
riding slowly in the wake of their leader. These
things she did not see at first, and so she leaned
downward toward the approaching rider, a cry of welcome
forming in her throat.

At the first word the man looked up, reining in in
surprise, and as she saw the black face of Abdul
Mourak, the Abyssinian, she shrank back in terror among
the branches; but it was too late. The man had seen
her, and now he called to her to descend. At first she
refused; but when a dozen black cavalrymen drew up
behind their leader, and at Abdul Mourak's command one
of them started to climb the tree after her she
realized that resistance was futile, and came slowly
down to stand upon the ground before this new captor
and plead her cause in the name of justice and humanity.

Angered by recent defeat, and by the loss of the gold,
the jewels, and his prisoners, Abdul Mourak was in no
mood to be influenced by any appeal to those softer
sentiments to which, as a matter of fact, he was almost
a stranger even under the most favourable conditions.

He looked for degradation and possible death in
punishment for his failures and his misfortunes when he
should have returned to his native land and made his
report to Menelek; but an acceptable gift might temper
the wrath of the emperor, and surely this fair flower
of another race should be gratefully received by the
black ruler!

When Jane Clayton had concluded her appeal, Abdul
Mourak replied briefly that he would promise her
protection; but that he must take her to his emperor.
The girl did not need ask him why, and once again hope
died within her breast. Resignedly she permitted
herself to be lifted to a seat behind one of the
troopers, and again, under new masters, her journey was
resumed toward what she now began to believe was her
inevitable fate.

Abdul Mourak, bereft of his guides by the battle he had
waged against the raiders, and himself unfamiliar with
the country, had wandered far from the trail he should
have followed, and as a result had made but little
progress toward the north since the beginning of his
flight. Today he was beating toward the west in the
hope of coming upon a village where he might obtain
guides; but night found him still as far from a
realization of his hopes as had the rising sun.

It was a dispirited company which went into camp,
waterless and hungry, in the dense jungle. Attracted
by the horses, lions roared about the boma, and to
their hideous din was added the shrill neighs of the
terror-stricken beasts they hunted. There was little
sleep for man or beast, and the sentries were doubled
that there might be enough on duty both to guard
against the sudden charge of an overbold, or overhungry
lion, and to keep the fire blazing which was an even
more effectual barrier against them than the thorny boma.

It was well past midnight, and as yet Jane Clayton,
notwithstanding that she had passed a sleepless night
the night before, had scarcely more than dozed. A
sense of impending danger seemed to hang like a black
pall over the camp. The veteran troopers of the black
emperor were nervous and ill at ease. Abdul Mourak
left his blankets a dozen times to pace restlessly back
and forth between the tethered horses and the crackling
fire. The girl could see his great frame silhouetted
against the lurid glare of the flames, and she guessed
from the quick, nervous movements of the man that he
was afraid.

The roaring of the lions rose in sudden fury until the
earth trembled to the hideous chorus. The horses
shrilled their neighs of terror as they lay back upon
their halter ropes in their mad endeavors to break
loose. A trooper, braver than his fellows, leaped
among the kicking, plunging, fear-maddened beasts in a
futile attempt to quiet them. A lion, large, and
fierce, and courageous, leaped almost to the boma, full
in the bright light from the fire. A sentry raised his
piece and fired, and the little leaden pellet
unstoppered the vials of hell upon the terror-stricken
camp.

The shot ploughed a deep and painful furrow in the
lion's side, arousing all the bestial fury of the
little brain; but abating not a whit the power and
vigor of the great body.

Unwounded, the boma and the flames might have turned
him back; but now the pain and the rage wiped caution
from his mind, and with a loud, and angry roar he
topped the barrier with an easy leap and was among the
horses.

What had been pandemonium before became now an
indescribable tumult of hideous sound. The stricken
horse upon which the lion leaped shrieked out its
terror and its agony. Several about it broke their
tethers and plunged madly about the camp. Men leaped
from their blankets and with guns ready ran toward the
picket line, and then from the jungle beyond the boma a
dozen lions, emboldened by the example of their fellow
charged fearlessly upon the camp.

Singly and in twos and threes they leaped the boma,
until the little enclosure was filled with cursing men
and screaming horses battling for their lives with the
green-eyed devils of the jungle.

With the charge of the first lion, Jane Clayton had
scrambled to her feet, and now she stood horror-struck
at the scene of savage slaughter that swirled and
eddied about her. Once a bolting horse knocked her
down, and a moment later a lion, leaping in pursuit of
another terror-stricken animal, brushed her so closely
that she was again thrown from her feet.

Amidst the cracking of the rifles and the growls of the
carnivora rose the death screams of stricken men and
horses as they were dragged down by the blood-mad cats.
The leaping carnivora and the plunging horses,
prevented any concerted action by the Abyssinians--it
was every man for himself--and in the melee, the
defenseless woman was either forgotten or ignored by
her black captors. A score of times was her life
menaced by charging lions, by plunging horses, or by
the wildly fired bullets of the frightened troopers,
yet there was no chance of escape, for now with the
fiendish cunning of their kind, the tawny hunters
commenced to circle about their prey, hemming them
within a ring of mighty, yellow fangs, and sharp, long
talons. Again and again an individual lion would dash
suddenly among the frightened men and horses, and
occasionally a horse, goaded to frenzy by pain or
terror, succeeded in racing safely through the circling
lions, leaping the boma, and escaping into the jungle;
but for the men and the woman no such escape was
possible.

A horse, struck by a stray bullet, fell beside Jane
Clayton, a lion leaped across the expiring beast full
upon the breast of a black trooper just beyond. The
man clubbed his rifle and struck futilely at the broad
head, and then he was down and the carnivore was
standing above him.

Shrieking out his terror, the soldier clawed with puny
fingers at the shaggy breast in vain endeavor to push
away the grinning jaws. The lion lowered his head, the
gaping fangs closed with a single sickening crunch upon
the fear-distorted face, and turning strode back across
the body of the dead horse dragging his limp and bloody
burden with him.

Wide-eyed the girl stood watching. She saw the
carnivore step upon the corpse, stumblingly, as the
grisly thing swung between its forepaws, and her eyes
remained fixed in fascination while the beast passed
within a few paces of her.

The interference of the body seemed to enrage the lion.
He shook the inanimate clay venomously. He growled and
roared hideously at the dead, insensate thing, and then
he dropped it and raised his head to look about in
search of some living victim upon which to wreak his
ill temper. His yellow eyes fastened themselves
balefully upon the figure of the girl, the bristling
lips raised, disclosing the grinning fangs. A terrific
roar broke from the savage throat, and the great beast
crouched to spring upon this new and helpless victim.

Quiet had fallen early upon the camp where Tarzan and
Werper lay securely bound. Two nervous sentries paced
their beats, their eyes rolling often toward the
impenetrable shadows of the gloomy jungle. The others
slept or tried to sleep--all but the ape-man. Silently
and powerfully he strained at the bonds which fettered
his wrists.

The muscles knotted beneath the smooth, brown skin of
his arms and shoulders, the veins stood out upon his
temples from the force of his exertions--a strand
parted, another and another, and one hand was free.
Then from the jungle came a low guttural, and the
ape-man became suddenly a silent, rigid statue, with ears
and nostrils straining to span the black void where his
eyesight could not reach.

Again came the uncanny sound from the thick verdure
beyond the camp. A sentry halted abruptly, straining
his eyes into the gloom. The kinky wool upon his head
stiffened and raised. He called to his comrade in a
hoarse whisper.

"Did you hear it?" he asked.

The other came closer, trembling.

"Hear what?"

Again was the weird sound repeated, followed almost
immediately by a similar and answering sound from the
camp. The sentries drew close together, watching the
black spot from which the voice seemed to come.

Trees overhung the boma at this point which was upon
the opposite side of the camp from them. They dared
not approach. Their terror even prevented them from
arousing their fellows--they could only stand in frozen
fear and watch for the fearsome apparition they
momentarily expected to see leap from the jungle.

Nor had they long to wait. A dim, bulky form dropped
lightly from the branches of a tree into the camp. At
sight of it one of the sentries recovered command of
his muscles and his voice. Screaming loudly to awaken
the sleeping camp, he leaped toward the flickering
watch fire and threw a mass of brush upon it.

The white officer and the black soldiers sprang from
their blankets. The flames leaped high upon the
rejuvenated fire, lighting the entire camp, and the
awakened men shrank back in superstitious terror from
the sight that met their frightened and astonished
vision.

A dozen huge and hairy forms loomed large beneath the
trees at the far side of the enclosure. The white
giant, one hand freed, had struggled to his knees and
was calling to the frightful, nocturnal visitors in a
hideous medley of bestial gutturals, barkings and
growlings.

Werper had managed to sit up. He, too, saw the savage
faces of the approaching anthropoids and scarcely knew
whether to be relieved or terror-stricken.

Growling, the great apes leaped forward toward Tarzan
and Werper. Chulk led them. The Belgian officer
called to his men to fire upon the intruders; but the
Negroes held back, filled as they were with
superstitious terror of the hairy treemen, and with the
conviction that the white giant who could thus summon
the beasts of the jungle to his aid was more than human.

Drawing his own weapon, the officer fired, and Tarzan
fearing the effect of the noise upon his really timid
friends called to them to hasten and fulfill his commands.

A couple of the apes turned and fled at the sound of
the firearm; but Chulk and a half dozen others waddled
rapidly forward, and, following the ape-man's
directions, seized both him and Werper and bore them
off toward the jungle.

By dint of threats, reproaches and profanity the
Belgian officer succeeded in persuading his trembling
command to fire a volley after the retreating apes. A
ragged, straggling volley it was, but at least one of
its bullets found a mark, for as the jungle closed
about the hairy rescuers, Chulk, who bore Werper across
one broad shoulder, staggered and fell.

In an instant he was up again; but the Belgian guessed
from his unsteady gait that he was hard hit. He lagged
far behind the others, and it was several minutes after
they had halted at Tarzan's command before he came
slowly up to them, reeling from side to side, and at
last falling again beneath the weight of his burden and
the shock of his wound.

As Chulk went down he dropped Werper, so that the
latter fell face downward with the body of the ape
lying half across him. In this position the Belgian
felt something resting against his hands, which were
still bound at his back--something that was not a part
of the hairy body of the ape.

Mechanically the man's fingers felt of the object
resting almost in their grasp--it was a soft pouch,
filled with small, hard particles. Werper gasped in
wonderment as recognition filtered through the
incredulity of his mind. It was impossible, and yet--
it was true!

Feverishly he strove to remove the pouch from the ape
and transfer it to his own possession; but the
restricted radius to which his bonds held his hands
prevented this, though he did succeed in tucking the
pouch with its precious contents inside the waist band
of his trousers.

Tarzan, sitting at a short distance, was busy with the
remaining knots of the cords which bound him.
Presently he flung aside the last of them and rose to
his feet. Approaching Werper he knelt beside him. For
a moment he examined the ape.

"Quite dead," he announced. "It is too bad--he was a
splendid creature," and then he turned to the work of
liberating the Belgian.

He freed his hands first, and then commenced upon the
knots at his ankles.

"I can do the rest," said the Belgian. "I have a small
pocketknife which they overlooked when they searched
me," and in this way he succeeded in ridding himself of
the ape-man's attentions that he might find and open
his little knife and cut the thong which fastened the
pouch about Chulk's shoulder, and transfer it from his
waist band to the breast of his shirt. Then he rose
and approached Tarzan.

Once again had avarice claimed him. Forgotten were the
good intentions which the confidence of Jane Clayton in
his honor had awakened. What she had done, the little
pouch had undone. How it had come upon the person of
the great ape, Werper could not imagine, unless it had
been that the anthropoid had witnessed his fight with
Achmet Zek, seen the Arab with the pouch and taken it
away from him; but that this pouch contained the jewels
of Opar, Werper was positive, and that was all that
interested him greatly.

"Now," said the ape-man, "keep your promise to me.
Lead me to the spot where you last saw my wife."

It was slow work pushing through the jungle in the dead
of night behind the slow-moving Belgian. The ape-man
chafed at the delay, but the European could not swing
through the trees as could his more agile and muscular
companions, and so the speed of all was limited to that
of the slowest.

The apes trailed out behind the two white men for a
matter of a few miles; but presently their interest
lagged, the foremost of them halted in a little glade
and the others stopped at his side. There they sat
peering from beneath their shaggy brows at the figures
of the two men forging steadily ahead, until the latter
disappeared in the leafy trail beyond the clearing.
Then an ape sought a comfortable couch beneath a tree,
and one by one the others followed his example, so that
Werper and Tarzan continued their journey alone; nor
was the latter either surprised or concerned.

The two had gone but a short distance beyond the glade
where the apes had deserted them, when the roaring of
distant lions fell upon their ears. The ape-man paid
no attention to the familiar sounds until the crack of
a rifle came faintly from the same direction, and when
this was followed by the shrill neighing of horses, and
an almost continuous fusillade of shots intermingled
with increased and savage roaring of a large troop of
lions, he became immediately concerned.

"Someone is having trouble over there," he said,
turning toward Werper. "I'll have to go to them--they
may be friends."

"Your wife might be among them," suggested the Belgian,
for since he had again come into possession of the
pouch he had become fearful and suspicious of the
ape-man, and in his mind had constantly revolved many plans
for eluding this giant Englishman, who was at once his
savior and his captor.

At the suggestion Tarzan started as though struck with
a whip.

"God!" he cried, "she might be, and the lions are
attacking them--they are in the camp. I can tell from
the screams of the horses--and there! that was the cry
of a man in his death agonies. Stay here man--I will
come back for you. I must go first to them," and
swinging into a tree the lithe figure swung rapidly off
into the night with the speed and silence of a
disembodied spirit.

For a moment Werper stood where the ape-man had left
him. Then a cunning smile crossed his lips. "Stay
here?" he asked himself. "Stay here and wait until you
return to find and take these jewels from me? Not I, my
friend, not I," and turning abruptly eastward Albert
Werper passed through the foliage of a hanging vine and
out of the sight of his fellow-man--forever.